wound up
by dominodude
Summary: During the week-long grand opening of the Battle Frontier in sunny, sandy Olivine, Crystal finally decides to be up front with Gold, for whom she's harbored feelings for the longest time. But just to be clear, this is not a love story. Post-HGSS, Mangaquest and inner turmoil.
1. Day II — Night

WOUND UP

During the week-long grand opening of the Battle Frontier in sunny, sandy Olivine, Crystal finally decides to be up front with Gold, for whom she's harbored feelings for the longest time. But just to be clear, this is not a love story.

RATED T

_Author's Note_

I noticed there aren't many fics where it's Chris who makes a move on Gold (not that I don't like it, I like it very much, it's just that in the HGSS arc it seems like Chris has been the one crushing on him while he's just chill) so here's my take on it. Also, I did my best to stay loyal to their character while aging them up. This is written out of order, and it's partly because I'm only figuring out what this is about as I go. I'll put the day at the top for better navigation though. At the end, let me know what you think so I can improve the story!

This is set in the manga-verse, post-HGSS. I'm afraid I made Gold a little more mature here. For a bit of context, this chapter's set when they're already in Olivine. Chris is outside the hotel of the Battle Tower, thinking about what Daisy said...

DAY 2

Seven years, she mused to herself. It can almost be poetic, were it not for the fact that the person she has extreme feelings of _la passion_ for remains oblivious to her. Admittedly, Crystal is starting to feel envious of him instead, as he is seemingly undaunted by the throes of...this _la passion_.

In her rumination she finds herself tracing the outlines of his face in the sky. How many times may Gold have done this? It sounds just like him to lie down the grass and gaze up at the night sky; he isn't the kind of guy who has words for everything (that's kind of been her thing), but he is a bit of the romantic. She thinks it's just that he hardly gives a name for things. If he were here, he'd say something along the lines of, _No idea why, but it makes me feel peaceful._

She looks back at the time things used to be different. The good thing about being in love—and being yet to act on it—is that nothing has been taken out of her life. And she's been really content with her life, you know? She's still working for Earl at the orphanage, for whom Professor Oak's still funding the necessary expenses in exchange for her research contribution as his lab assistant, and so far, she hasn't heard any complaints from him. There is no end-of-the-world drama (that she knows of) that threatens Johto. Her mom's off...wherever she fancies, but she keeps in touch with her. There is nothing ruined by her (undying) infatuation towards Gold...except for the fact that she feels like he's the only part missing in her life.

"'Scuse me," says a voice behind her, "what's a girl like you doing at a place like this?"

She suddenly feels like the air has been knocked out of her lungs.

"Gold!"

As though summoned, Gold is instantly there behind her, stretching. He settles on the spot beside her, where Daisy has just been.

"Stargazing, are we?" He wiggles on the slight spot of grass, trying to get comfortable. Then, brimming with satisfaction, he turns to look at Crystal. "Daisy thought you could use the company."

"Ah." So she left to...? "Did she?"

He starts humming good-naturedly. She peeks at him from the corner of her eye. This can be her chance. Is there a way to go about this? Should she speak first? _She's_ the self-imposed loner out here looking for Gold-faced constellations...Daisy didn't give her a heads-up on what to do. So. She's going to have to act natural. She's been alone with him too many times for this to be awkward. She can do this.

...A minute has passed and she is yet to initiate a conversation. But to be fair she wants to lock this moment in a time capsule, to keep it as something she'll revisit in the years to come. As much as she's shy to admit, she enjoys this, just lying here with him beside her. One of the things she likes about their friendship is that she can share silences with him. The thought sends a familiar ache to her chest: Crystal sighs.

"What was that?"

"What was _what_?"

Gold imitates her sigh. "That. You need to learn to chill out, Chris. Ever thought you might be pushing yourself too hard?" He does an awful impression of what he likes to call her 'teacher voice'. "'_You need to grow up. Don't you have other things to do?_' Man, I get that you're busy, but you don't need to be too uptight."

"I don't sound that mean," she says. She confesses that she's slightly offended. Is that what he thinks she sounds like when she tells him off?

"Oh, don't worry. I'm used to it, actually." His voice is playful and contagiously chipper. "Makes me look tough, don't you think?"

Crystal doesn't answer immediately—if anything, what Gold wants least is to be nagged on, and here he is literally encouraging her to. She needs to tread carefully if she wants to know what's going on in his head. Lightly, she nudges him, and he nudges back, smiling. Okay, good move.

"You don't mean that, do you?" Impishly, she shifts her gaze back to the sky. "About being used to it."

"Ahh." He shrugs, somewhat stubbornly, quiet for a second. "I do. It's just that, just because I am it doesn't mean you get a free pass for doing it."

Which means that he does mind when she nags at him.

"I only do it when you're being irrational," she says levelly.

"I'm only being irrational because _you_ like it."

A beat. Crystal could have sworn her heart swelled at the tip of the smirk she knows he's donning and is torn between having to smack him and being swallowed by the sand.

She goes with the former.

"I do _not_ like it!"

"I don't hear you complaining," chuckles Gold, a notably red hand-shaped mark blemishing his cheek.

"Every day, if you haven't noticed!"

"Ahh, super serious as ever," he mutters.

She leaves it at that, to cool off. An argument yet again. Is there another way to translate her feelings of affection that isn't achieved through aggression?

"Remember when we first met?" Here it goes. She'll let the arrow fly wherever. Do or die, Chris. "How we wouldn't even have met if Yellow's boat didn't break even."

"Oh, yeah. Who would've thought."

"Do you ever wonder if we'd met differently?" she says breathlessly.

This is the closest they've ever been. She doesn't know if he's noticed, only knows he's thinking about what she said.

"Huh. We would have met either way. We're dex owners." It seems like Gold's seeing little point in thinking up an alternate universe. But Crystal has to know.

"I mean—what I mean to say, is, what if we never were given the Pokédex to begin with?"

Gold turns to face her. "Are you okay, Chris? You're acting weird."

"I want you..." she hesitates, realizes the suggestion of her pause, "...to answer the question."

Almost in a flash, Gold takes away a strange look that he gives her for a split of a second. She's never seen it before.

"Never took you one for liking games, Miss Priss. All right." Gold's eyes are up on the stars again. "Gotta be honest. I don't think we couldn't have met. Know what I mean? It's too—ugh. I don't know. Mmm. Too out of our control, you think?"

"Out of our control?"

In his embarrassment rather than frustration, Gold scratches his head. "Yeah. Since Silver and I would've bumped into each other anyway, and he would've still stolen my bag."

"Assuming you were someplace else instead," she insists. "If everything's as it was, before the Pokèdex ever happened to us. If I were just this random girl volunteering at the trainer house in Violet, and, somehow, we just happened to have met."

Many cosmological coincidences would have been at play were they to have met under entirely different circumstances. They would not even be here.

It is Gold who breaks the ice, but he does so in a measured tone. "I think it can happen. We wouldn't be as close, though."

Crystal sees that there is no shortcut to the point she is trying to make, and they're both still at different ends of the meter. She cuts to the chase. "I was just wondering if you'd think I'd be interesting enough to hang out with."

She hopes Gold doesn't catch the implications of the message: _Do you think we're more than just stuck with each other? _It's possible she's making a mountain out of a molehill, though the urge to reassure herself is enough to drive her crazy. Daisy's words have shaken her to the core.

There's that look again: He looks at her strangely, as though considering. She tries to remember all the other times she's seen it on someone else's face.

Gold fidgets, something he doesn't do usually. She isn't sure whether that's a good thing. "I—I dunno. I think...not."

"...Oh." Distantly, she can hear something shatter. She lies still, unsure of how to respond.

"Yeah. We wouldn't be as close, see. I don't think I'll come within a quarter-mile at Earl's either. Heh, even if we'd meet we'd have nothing in common. Dusting a building doesn't really make you a head-tur—hey, hey!"

Crystal doesn't contain her sob. Her knees are shaking. She can't cry: Not like this. Not in front of—

"Chris?"

Almost at once his arms are around her. At first she resists, but he holds her tighter and she just...relaxes.

He pushes back her hair and holds her face in his palms, wiping away her tears in that gentle way he does that surprises her. "Aww, you can calm down, Super Serious Gal."

There he goes: Being an idiot one second and turning into the sweetest boy the next.

"We _don't_ have anything in common," she says, and realizes she's crying about the stupidest thing.

"Damn right, if we did I'd be filed for physical abuse," he says cheekily.

"I won't hit you again," she promises, for some reason. He smells good: If crying means having to hug him after, she should've done this ages ago.

"I won't be any good dead. And after I've just grown _so_ fond of you."

As offhandedly as he says it, she ignores it. Personally having Gold's social nuances memorized prepares her for blush-enducing encounters. She knows him better than to assume he ever means it. She just wish it gets easier.

"Seriously, is something bothering you?" Gold asks, voice only a key off. Gold, ever the golden boy. Gold, privileged by his upbringing. She's secretly envious of him: His mother gives him all her love and pays him all her attention, lets him have his way with whatever he wants, whenever he wants, probably. He's practically spoiled rotten by her—he's never had to work a day in his life, and spends most of the time playing. Three years ago when they were training in Two Island, she's been the one doing the cleaning, the cooking and the rest of the chores. All he's had to do is take care of the pokèmon, because, frankly, Gold is not suited for domestic life. All his life, he's been calling the shots, as though the shots are his to call. But... "Chris?"

But she can't blame him, you know? Just because she's had a rough childhood and he hasn't it doesn't mean he owes the world any more than she does. She gets this. Hell, once things will be up to her, she'll spoil her own children, too.

She shies away from his embrace.

"Just some sand in my eye," she mumbles.

"Must be from lying down. Gotta put those legs to work. Let's head back." His warmth is the only thing keeping her from going back to the room, really. She wants them to stay like this. "The challenge starts tomorrow, first thing. We gotta win this!"

"Yeah, I guess my head's been cleared enough," she says, and only half-believes it. She picks up her bag and follows after him to leave the seashore.

"I thought we'd be out here stargazing," he's saying, "You spent most of the time looking at the ground."

"I was, until you showed up."

"Not my fault my face is distracting you."

"Is it bad I keep wondering what's wrong with it?"

"Because there's _nothing_ wrong with it."

She lets Gold go ahead of her, smiling ruefully. She's...glad he doesn't pry. But, some part of her wishes he did.

Romantic progress continues at a glacial pace, if at all. And while not exactly thrilling, there can be time to enjoy the slow, tender moments.

Though, Crystal doesn't know for how much longer. She gazes up at the sky once more. The stars can be deceiving.


	2. A Few Days Prior — Night

WOUND UP

_Author's Note_

I'd stop some people from reviewing but then that means I won't get to enjoy the petty chaos anymore. As amused as I am, y'all need to chill. I did like one advice from one of you so I'll just be slipping in the line after the author's note. Everything else just defeats the purpose of my autonomous creativity. Cool? Cool.

* * *

A FEW DAYS PRIOR — NIGHT

Crystal gingerly turns over her empty mug, eyes darting away from the group of punks snickering in their direction. "God, couldn't he have chosen a less skeezier place to hang out in?"

Daisy appears pleasantly unperturbed. "Don't worry, Chris. If they're here to pick up women the last thing they'll do is come anywhere near schoolgirls in lab coats."

"I'm not sure about that," Crystal says, instead of explaining that some men, especially this type of men, are not at all exclusive to picking up women beyond schoolgirls in lab coats, and may specifically even prefer schoolgirls in lab coats. Crystal thinks her friend must be tipsier than she lets on. Vaguely she wonders what Daisy and her brother Green have in common, and lets the question hang unasked in the air. After all, it won't be long before she finds out herself.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Gold springs up from behind. He helps Crystal to more booze by pouring into her mug from his own bottle.

"_Heyyy_ yourself." She raises her drink to his face. "Don't you think I've had enough of this?"

"Aww, loosen up! At least Daisy Oak's having fun!"

Ever the jovial character, Daisy positively beams at them both through frothy lips. "I'm sure Chris is enjoying her time here, too."

"Well, I have an idea how we can all have some fun," Gold grins. Crystal never gives him the invitation to, but now Gold's arm is hooked around her neck, and she is overwhelmed by his scent—cookies and coke and nurture and nicotine, like a Neverland lost boy stuck in his teenage years. "Get this—I'm only allowed to say this once, so listen extra careful, okay?"

Crystal is close enough to be able to tell that Gold has been around one of those creeps who've smoked a couple cigarettes too many. "Know that building they have under construction by the beach front?"

Cogs begin moving in Crystal's head. "You mean the Battle Tower at Olivine?"

"Theee exact one! See, they're gonna open the Battle Tower at Olivine. It's next Sunday."

Excitement is a tone too hard to miss, and Crystal has already picked up on this the moment Gold jumped them. At the corner of her eye, she watches Daisy cast her a sideway glance.

"'Course, there's gonna be a seven-day festival _first_, before the grand opening," he continues, voice dripping with trepidation. Gold doesn't always look forward to, well, _anything_, really, but when he gets excitable, he's extremely excitable. "There's gonna be bands and battles and—_get this_, the best part is, they're gonna hold it at the beach!"

...The _beach_. Crystal looks deep into Gold's eyes and hopes he isn't serious. A month's worth of dialling seniors and juniors and checking schedules and compartmentalizing reports according to length of completion—preparations she rode on _painkillers_ to make stream in her mind's eye like a video reel. Right here, in front of her, overlapping the images is a boy who's asking her to ruin them just to spend a week at Olivine _beach_.

"Gold," she begins steadily. Her head swims when Gold clasps his hands with hers, "I'd like to remind you that our seniors are coming over this _weekend_—"

"Yeah, yeah, they are! But don't you wanna spend quality time together before you leave?"

"Q-quality time—" Jesus, she cannot believe that Gold is _guilt-tripping_ her. Crystal attempts to regain her composure—or masking her lack of it—by downing the contents of her mug. Daisy has wisely tuned herself out from their argument and has begun swaying slightly to the music. "We barely have enough time left to prepare for their visit and now you're—"

"C'mon, what more do we need to be readier?"

Too frustrated to regard his crooked manner of speaking, Crystal holds Gold's hands tighter.

"Let me finish—we can't just set up and move away one week before they come over, okay? Gold, do you expect to come back, what, an hour before the reunion?"

"A dayyy," singsongs Gold, twisting the word at the end and watching it form a whirlwind. "It won't be a waste of time, I promise."

Amber eyes distract Crystal from her train of thought so she turns to Daisy, who has been finding the pool table to be more interesting than their conversation. There goes her back up.

"We'll get you back before they know you're gone. Chris, look at me." Crystal does, haphazardly aware that her willpower is diminishing. "Internship at the old man's is gonna imprison you, aight? _Effectively_. You'll be away who knows how long. Working your ass off. Without li'l ol' me to distract you."

As Gold goes on, Crystal finds that it becomes increasingly hard to concentrate avoiding making the wrong decision. Gold's eyes are hard on her own, and her legs weaken, immobilized by their depth. "You've only got one week left to spend here in Johto. Won't you wanna spend it with me?"

God. She promised to spend a day with the kids at Earl's—

"We'll stop by on the way home," insists Gold. "They'll looooove some souvenirs. Come on, Chrisss, please, please, please..."

'_Please_'s are all Gold says as he swings her back and forth, and she quietly thanks God he cannot hear her heart pounding. Crystal thinks about when she can ever find the nerve again to say no to that face—concludes that she may spoil him too much too often now.

For the first time in a long time she gives Gold a one-over. Watches his breath catch, feels the pressure of his hold, lets herself melt in his attention; she hates how he knows she's going to miss everything about him.

Despite herself, Crystal bites down a smile. When she says _yes, she supposes it won't hurt to come along_, Gold sucks in a breath in celebration. In a poor attempt at deflating his ego, she hastily adds, "But we'll be back for—"

"Reunion! Got that!" He fires her finger guns, and she makes sure he sees her roll her eyes. "You are—_literally_—the best!"

For each stress of the word Gold gulps down his drink, winking at her while shuffling back to the crowd. "'Soon as I'm done with this set, we'll hit the road!"

Before taking off, Gold acknowledges Daisy. "Be seeing you, Daisy Oak!"

Her friend waves airily back at him as he disappears. "What time will he be done, you think?"

"Let's give him twenty minutes." Crystal follows Gold's explosive jet-black hairstyle in the bar as her mind wanders elsewhere. Four days ago she never would have imagined a giddy Gold. Just this afternoon when she stopped by Gold's house his mother mentioned his dilemma of 'changing a career path'. "Did he seem weird to you?"

"Gold?"

"Yeah."

"...Not more than usual."

When it comes to Gold, Crystal can't even trust her own eyes. Most of the time she feels like she's running a red light with him, and now that she has agreed to come to the festival she's afraid that she has just run five.

Daisy lightly touches her on the shoulder, gaze set on the direction Gold headed off to. "He never brought this up until now?"

"Never." While it's true Gold can be...spontaneous, she would have caught on to some precursor to this trip that at least made sense to her. Yet she didn't.

How could she have missed something? Yes, she's been nose-deep into research and all these chores that she can't always keep tabs on every suspect thing...but she should have noticed.

Almost as if she's sharing thoughts with her, Daisy speaks up, "Gold might just not be ready to tell us anything."

Crystal considers the possibility for a moment, lets it sink and settle. For the first time that night, she agrees with her.

In a way, it does offend her—frighteningly so. Crystal wants to refuse to believe in that alternative, which is that there is something Gold is hiding from her—and that the most economic solution is to put her faith, however blind, in him.


End file.
